Verizon's V Cast Music Service is the first wireless music store that truly competes with stores accessed only via a PC, and its new music handsets are the first to sync with a wide variety of purchased Windows Media Audio-format songs. Although there are a number of kinks in the systemso we wouldn't make Verizon's store and devices our primary source for musicthis is a big step forward for cell phones.

Three phones work with the storethe LG VX8100, the Samsung SCH-A950, and the Audiovox CDM 8945as does Windows Media Player 10 on a Windows XP PC. Verizon plans support for more phones in the future, but not for Macs. We tried the store on an LG VX8100.

To use V Cast the service, you must V Cast subscribe for $15 a month and buy a $30 kit that includes a USB cable, software, and a pair of headphones. The V Cast subscription gives you wireless Web access and some video clips along with the store. Songs cost 99 cents apiece if downloaded to a PC and $1.99 if pulled down from a phone. Albums, at $9.99 to $14.99 are available for PCs.

V Cast Music phones sync with WMP 10, appearing as a music player or PDA in WMP and as a removable drive on your desktop. The phones are supposed to work with other WMA-format stores, such as Napster, Rhapsody, and Yahoo! Music, though not their associated subscription services. And although the V Cast Music player doesn't have any native MP3 support, when WMP on your PC transfers the songs, it should transcode into WMA format transparently.

V Cast Music sells 500,000 songs from the four major labels, plus indie tracks acquired through the Orchard clearinghouse. Verizon is running servers from WiderThan, a client from PacketVideo and DRM from Microsoft, but the content relationships are all Verizon.

Phone-purchased songs come down in 64-Kbps Windows Media Pro format. You can then also download a copy onto your PC, in the better-quality 160 Kbps Windows Media Audio 9 format. If you initially buy your song on your PC, you get it in the larger WMA9 format and can move that file over to your phone. Continue Reading

PCMag.com's lead mobile analyst, Sascha Segan, has reviewed hundreds of smartphones, tablets and other gadgets in more than 9 years with PCMag. He's the head of our Fastest Mobile Networks project, one of the hosts...

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